Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Instead of getting a summer job, Alton agrees to be a cardturner for his blind and rich great uncle Lester Trapp’s bridge games. Along the way, he learns life lessons and how to play the game.

After reading this novel, I’m convinced Sachar can make any subject fascinating. I went in knowing next to nothing about bridge, and I put the novel down at the end not only with a rudimentary understanding of the game, but a healthy appreciation for it.

Sachar knows he’s not going to interest everyone in the intricacies of bridge strategy and culture, so he employs a very creative device known as the “Moby Dick” whale. Sachar precedes sections where potentially “boring” details could get in the way of the story with an icon of the whale and then follows them up with a short summary. I can think of a ton of novels that would benefit from this brilliant device (first to mind is Elizabeth Kostova’s THE HISTORIAN – a whale icon could have spared me that whole plodding section on the migration habits of medieval monks in Eastern Europe).

As it did in HOLES, Sachar’s storytelling shines. Alton befriends another bridge playing teen related to Lester named Toni who may or may not be crazy. Together they help Lester fulfill his dream of playing in the national bridge tournament. The novel also has a philosophical bent, touching on themes like coincidence and synchronicity, religion and afterlife.

Here are some passages I really liked.

On the eternal life of ideas:

“One way or another, the body of Alton Richards will cease to exist,” he said.“But the idea of Alton Richards will live forever.”

“So what happens toideas that are not communicated?” asked Gloria. “Do they die?”

22 comments:

Yay! I just received this book in the mail yesterday. I'm so excited to read it after hearing your thoughts. (I kinda skimmed your review b/c I didn't want to bias my reading...I'll check back and read more closely after I've read it.)

I am annoyed with myself that I've never read Holes. I pitched it to my kids as something we could read together (they love the movie) and I got dead stares like I was crazy. I'd also heard good things about the sequel. Giving this all some more thought...

I have never read anything by this author, but I think those little excerpts may have convinced me. You can see in so little words that this author is a true writer. I've heard nothing but fascinating and amazing things about Holes, so I am definitely going to have to pick up one of his books. And have you seen the UK cover? so so pretty.

This sounds like a fabulous book. You never hear about Bridge anymore.I hadn't heard about this book until I read your review. Then I noticed that the NYT posted about it recently.Guess lots of people really liked it.

This sounds great - especially the part about learning just enough about bridge to understand what's going on. I have had a little bit of an interest in learning a little bit about the game, but I don't want a fiction book I read for fun to turn into a how to book. Also, I loved the quotes you shared. I love books that have a little bit of philosophical exploration in them.